Blood of the Volcano: Sequal to Heart of the Volcano

by Imogen Howson

  Once, from the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the maenad-girl stir. But when he looked properly she was motionless, her face blank and unaware. His hand crept to the knife at his belt all the same, and he left the fire and went to check on her.

  She lay still, a sand-stained bundle of ragged tunic and straggling hair, her face pale and smudged.

  It was only her eyelids flickering that warned him. He jumped back just as she jerked upwards, striking at him with the jagged rock she’d concealed in her fist, aiming at his head.

  Although he moved fast the edge of the rock caught his cheek, splitting the skin with a sensation like a streak of fire.

  He had the knife in his hand almost before he knew it. It was just as well because she came at him, teeth bared, rock clutched in both hands.

  But he was twice her size, and the maenad strength had left her a long time ago. He swept her arms aside, knocking the rock from her grasp, and had her by the throat, knife pressed under her chin, before she could recover.

  “You little bitch.” His face was so close to hers he could feel the rapid warmth of her breath touch his skin. His knife hand clenched so hard it shook, scratching her neck, and a thread of bright blood appeared suddenly, trickling down her throat. “You little bitch, I should spit you through now and have done with it.”

  Her fear hit him in a blur of cold, but he was defended against it, so angry that for the moment there was room for no emotions but his own. I could make this be over. I’ve shown mercy and mercy—if I kill her now not even I could feel guilty.

  The anger seemed to drive through him, into the hand that held the knife. For the first time he wanted to kill her, wanted to thrust the blade in through yielding flesh and have it done with, no more pity, no more fear. Just one dead maenad, and him free and unencumbered, an easy journey from home.

  And yet… Ah, mother-selling slave traders. He couldn’t do it. Again. She deserved it, and no one would blame him, and yet he couldn’t do it.

  “Keep still, damn you.” Keeping the knife at her throat, he reached downwards for her wrists. He felt her fear spike as he did so, felt the cramp in his own belly, felt his own muscles contract against what she was afraid he was going to do.

  The realisation drove fresh anger through him. That’s what she thought he wanted to do to her?

  “Don’t be so damn stupid. I wouldn’t touch you with a six-foot pole.”

  But her gaze stayed fixed, her pupils contracted to pinpoints, her wrists rigid as dead sticks in his grasp. This wasn’t just fear. It was panic—unthinking, mindless panic.

  Is that really what she’s been afraid of? All this time she’s been afraid not just that I’ll imprison her but that I’ll rape her? What sort of man does she think I am?

  Philos. She has no idea what sort of man you are. How can she?

  He sighed. “I mean it. In heaven’s name, girl, d’you think I’d risk it? For all I know you have teeth up there too.”

  She blinked at him. And then, for the first time, she smiled—a sudden spontaneous flash of a real smile, lit with relief…and amusement.

  The next moment it was gone, squashed out of sight under her accustomed grim expression. “I do,” she said through her teeth, and he wanted to laugh, because it was so ridiculous, her determination that he must stay afraid of her.

  Although if that’s what she fears, I cannot blame her.

  But enough mistakes. He’d made too many already, one more could kill him.

  He got a tighter grip on her wrists, took the knife away and swung her round so her back was to him, propelled her across to the cave side of the gully. There’d be real rope in the other chest. He’d had enough of tearing his tunic to bits.

  “I’m going to tie you up. And I swear, you can faint all you like—I’m not freeing you again.” He fumbled one-handed at the hook on the chest fastening. “Lie down. On your front. Don’t move.”

  She did as she was told, getting to her knees, then, the lack of use of her hands making her clumsy, face down on the rock.

  He managed to push up the lid of the chest, stiff on its little-used hinges. “Stay still.” There were blankets piled in there, scratchy and hardwearing. He pulled them out, keeping his hand tight on her wrists.

  A smaller pile of bandages, shoved into one of the corners. One caught as he pulled it, leaving a torn scrap stuck in the side of the chest. Even here, in as much shelter as could be found, over the last year the wood had warped, the pieces easing apart to leave a crack. At least no water had got in to soak and rot the blankets.

  His hand met soft cloth—a couple of clean desert robes. Plenty of cloth, he supposed, if he went through the whole chest and found no rope. But damn it, he could have sworn there was rope in one of these chests.

  He fumbled farther, pushing aside the soft, feather-light fabric of the robes, hardly registering the sudden sticky touch on his hand. If there was rope, it could well be coiled right down at the bottom…

  When the pain came it was so tiny as to be hardly noticeable, a pinprick of a sting, nothing more, in the heel of his hand. But knowledge flashed through him, instant, frost-cold. He snatched his hand back and the spider came with it, clinging just below his wrist bone. Dark grey, zigzag striped. Deadly.

  He jumped back, a cry sticking in his throat, the pain flaring into an itch that spread already all over his palm, shaking his hand to get the thing off. If it bit him again he’d die in minutes—two cliff-spider bites could kill a warhorse.

  The spider fell, a scrabbling inkblot, onto the rock. Philos flung himself away from it, aware in a tiny, leftover section of his mind that he’d let the girl go, that she’d scrambled up and was backing away herself, gaze fixed like his on the grey and black killer between them.

  It would attack. If it had been only one of the insect-eaters…but this spider hunted larger prey. It ate meat, and the females laid their eggs in rotting flesh. All his life he’d known to be careful, but this time he hadn’t thought. The chest was well-made, sealed against—

  No. He remembered now, what he hadn’t thought about enough to make him careful. It hadn’t stayed sealed. It had warped and left a crack. Just a tiny crack, but enough to let death in.

  The itch climbed his arm, and pain followed it, like tiny needle-pointed wires driving through every single vein, his own bloodstream spreading the poison through his body. He needed to kill the spider before it attacked, but he wouldn’t be able to move quick enough, he couldn’t do it—

  The girl moved for him, a flash of movement almost as fast as when she’d been in her maenad form. Her heel came down on the spider and it was gone, nothing but a crushed black smear on the rock. She scraped her foot on a clear patch of ground, grimacing.

  “That…was insane…” His voice echoed weirdly in his ears, coming from somewhere far off. “They can see behind them…”

  She shrugged, the movement strange, slowed down, the outline of her body blurring, as if it were bleeding colour into the air, and said something he couldn’t make out, something that seemed to float and dissolve before it reached his ears.

  The pain spread farther, red hot and sickening, beating in pulses into his shoulder, and if she spoke again he couldn’t hear her at all.

  Chapter Six

  Maya watched him stagger and go to his knees, the poisoned hand stiffening to a claw. He snatched at it with his other hand, blindly, gripping it, straining it against his chest as if that would stop the pain. A swarm of red pinpricks was spreading up from his wrist, fast enough that she could see it move, see his skin prickle into tiny bumps, as if trying to peel itself away from the poison in his blood.

  Everyone knew about cliff-spider bites. They took hours to kill you—agonising hours, as the poison paralysed your limbs, took your speech and sight and hearing and left you with nothing but the pain. There was only one cure, and that had to be performed in the first minutes after you’d been bitten, before the poison-rash crept past his shoulder and onto his throat.
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br />   Why am I thinking about a cure? It’s not me who’s been bitten.

  This was the opportunity she’d waited for, the one she’d tried to create by feigning unconsciousness when she’d recovered from that brief faint. He was helpless—dying, just like the god meant him to—and she had food and water and supplies, everything she needed to get across the desert.

  He’d collapsed, huddled over his arm, panting, spasms shaking through his body. And the rash was creeping farther, up to the crook of his elbow. Even the cure might not save him now. And if she waited only a little while longer nothing would save him at all.

  She realised she’d been standing, staring at him for the last few endless minutes, and shook herself, angry. I don’t need to watch him die! She turned away deliberately, setting her teeth. I’ll come back when it’s done, get supplies. I’ll go home in honour and it will all be over.

  From behind her, he made a sound. Not a cry, but a small, bitten-down sound, the sound of someone in so much pain they could not even scream.

  She looked back. He was lying on his side, arm thrust away from his body as if by doing so he could force the pain further away. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his face was a terrible colour, mud-grey, set in lines so deep they looked as if they’d been scored through him with a knife.

  When I was sick he untied my hands. The thought came unbidden, out of nowhere. He didn’t need to—I wouldn’t have died if he’d left me bound, and he knew that by untying me he put himself in danger. He could have left me to vomit without being able to wipe my mouth.

  But he hadn’t.

  If she left him he’d die. And everyone—the pack, the priests, the god—would say she was right to do it. But…

  She dropped the supplies and took the three swift strides she needed to get to where he lay. As she reached him his body went into a spasm, and the knife slid from his belt to fall, chinking on the rock.

  She snatched it up, then grabbed his arm and held it flat against the ground. The poison had climbed so far, she’d have to do it above his elbow, and he was going to bleed a lot. Maybe too much, maybe so much that she wouldn’t be able to save him. Or maybe I’m too late anyway. If I can’t save him, or if the poison’s already reached too far… If so, she would have to kill him. Having made this move to save him, she’d not be able to abandon him to the hours-long death the poison would condemn him to.

  She set her teeth, took a better grip on the knife, and slashed it across his upper arm. Blood poured out, warm and slick over her hand. The smell filled her nose and throat, and she gagged. Stupid. I won’t sicken at this. How much blood have I spilled? Then, an underneath, unexpected thought. And it has never before been to save a life.

  She shook off the thoughts, distractions she didn’t need, gritted her teeth against the nausea, and let go of his arm long enough to grab one of the bandages to tie, stranglingly tight, a few inches above the cut. It might not help, she’d had to make it so high up his arm, his heart might pump too much blood out before the poison had been expelled from his veins.

  And that’s my fault. If I hadn’t hesitated so long…

  As she wrenched the tourniquet tight, the flow of blood lessened. She bent to sniff it, and it smelled clean, with none of the sickly-sour tinge spider poison would lend it. But if she bound the wound now, and if there were any traces left, they would work through his body, leaving him paralysed if not dead. For someone like him, an outlaw, someone who lived by his agility and strength, that would be as much of a death sentence as the poison itself.

  She glanced at his face. It was a horrible colour, dirty yellow-grey, slick with sweat. But she could see the pulse beating strongly at his throat. She had a little longer… Although what do I know? The rudiments, that’s all, only what I might need to help a pack member, with her enhanced healing abilities, her tougher skin, her own body’s resistance to poisons. I’m going to kill him, and this time I don’t even want to.

  She waited, nails biting into her hands, her heart seeming to beat in time with the pulse in his throat, waited while the last traces of poison flowed out with the blood, waited, fighting the impossible compulsion to grab his arm and bind the wound before he bled anymore.

  That’s it. I can’t stand it. If I leave it any longer I will kill him.

  She snatched up bandages, bound them tightly around the wound, waited till the blood seeping through their fabric was no longer a spreading stain, then unfastened the tourniquet.

  And now? He was breathing, but had she done enough? Had she left it too long? Vaguely, she became aware that the fire had died to a puddle of glowing ash on the rock. She was covered in blood, both dried and fresh, horrible, stinking with it. Using a cloth she found in the chest—taking excessive care to touch it with her fingertips only before she’d shaken it out—she washed her face and arms as thoroughly as she could with the hot water, clouding it with red. She flung the bloody water out over the cliff, glad she didn’t have to leave the gully to do so. She was already so tired she could hardly stand.

  And no wonder. She looked up to find the gully swiftly darkening around her as the light drained from the sky. She dragged blankets from the chest, shaking them as she had the cloth and making sure no tiny deadly creature fell scrabbling to the rock, then laid them out in the little cave. There was room, just, for both her and the criminal, but she could not bear to sleep with him so close—nor did she think she could drag him across that far.

  She laid a blanket next to him instead, and managed to roll him onto it before covering him with another. For a moment she saw herself as she must look—incongruously caring, a nurse, a healer, a mother—and shook her head to clear it of the disturbing picture. She wouldn’t think about what she’d done. She had no time for guilt or self-disgust. She needed to wipe all thoughts from her mind, needed to sleep and sleep and sleep.

  The last of the light went suddenly, and darkness fell into the gully, as thick and soft as black wool. Maya fumbled her way towards the tiny glow of the dying fire. The blankets were a little itchy, but warm against her night-chilled skin, and the darkness enveloped her, drawing her down into a place where thoughts were not.

  Philos woke into darkness as thick as black wool. Beneath him was the rough, soft texture of a blanket, and the feel of another pulled over him. He was lying on his right side, and his left arm felt like a dead weight against him, swollen and very stiff. His left fingers twitched in remembered agony as memory flashed in his head.

  “The spider.”

  “It’s dead,” came a voice from the darkness. A girl’s voice.

  He pushed himself onto his good elbow, eyes straining in the dark—a useless endeavour, but half his memory seemed dark too, and he had to clear his head, he had to think.

  He was awake, stiff and confused in the aftermath of pain, and it was nighttime, and he was with a woman. But the voice wasn’t that of anyone he knew…

  In his head the memory-flash spread further, like light breaking through the worn places in a tent roof, in disconnected patches here and there. Escaping the city. Hearing the shrieks that meant the maenads had his scent… The maenad-girl.

  “You killed it,” he said. “The spider. That’s why it’s dead.” The picture, of her bare foot crushing it, came to him, laced through with the remembrance of pain like a crisscross of red-hot wires. But after that, nothing, as if the wires had clustered together so thickly they’d cut off the light, blocked his mind from everything else that must have happened.

  He tried to gather the vague jumble of thoughts. “Why am I not dead?”

  She didn’t answer.

  His arm was stiff because it was bandaged, he discovered, and—“Agh.”—almost unbearably tender. But the worst pain was not where the spider had bitten him, but much farther up, halfway between his elbow and armpit.

  “I…cut myself? I got the blood out…?” That came in a memory-flash too. Himself, clumsy with the pain, reaching for the knife, fumbling and dropping it, his muscles already too w
eak. He couldn’t have done it himself.

  “You did it,” he said to her through the dark. “You saved me.”

  “Yes.” Her voice came like a shrug, dismissive, an unwilling admission. He frowned towards the sound, wishing he could see her face. She’d saved his life, bandaged his arm and put him to bed. More memory was coming back. The ravine, the fight in the river, her threats…her grief. She’d saved him?

  “Why?”

  She didn’t say anything. But through the darkness, like the gritty wind that comes before a sandstorm, he felt a swirl of confusion and guilt as strong as grief. She didn’t know why she’d saved him, and she hated herself for doing it.

  “I owe you,” he said, almost at random, trying for something that would take away the sting of what she must see as a betrayal of her god and her people.

  “Hardly.” Her voice was tight. “You could have killed me twenty times over in the last day and night.” She stopped, and he felt, rather than heard, her grit her teeth. “And it’s not repayment. It means nothing. You owe me nothing. There can be no debt-bond between you and I.”

  The guilt and confusion roughened her voice, and anger gave it an edge like steel. He was in danger here—weakened and in her power—he’d be wise to agree with her, or to say nothing. But he’d been dying of spider poison, and in more pain than he could ever remember, and she’d stopped it.

  “At least, you must know I’ll no longer hold you prisoner. You have your freedom—”

  She laughed, a sudden bright sound like sparks scattering against the blackness, and he stopped, realising too late how stupid he sounded.

  “How kind.” Her voice sparked too, the laughter glittering all along its edges. “What else will you do for me? Give me food from the stores? Allow me a blanket to take with me?”

  “All right. Clearly, you can take whatever you like. I know very well it’s me in your power now.”